Sister Evangeline remained in the chapel even as the altar candles were extinguished and all the other nuns and monks had gone to their chambers for the night. She knelt in the dark on the hard oak bench before her and remained quiet, her head in her hands, her eyes closed, for more than an hour, waiting for something she wasn’t sure would come. She wanted an answer from God—a sign to show her the way—and every night and every morning for the last three weeks, she had stayed in the chapel for hours at a time, waiting for God to tell her what to do.
She listened, but there was nothing. All she could hear were the birds, the flapping of the wings of the pigeons that came and went from their nests along the eaves of the chapel. She also heard the telltale sounds from the habits of her sisters in the hallway, the kind of swishing noises that the long skirts made, and she knew they had gone first to the kitchen to make sure the breakfast supplies were out and now were on their way to bed. She waited another twenty minutes without an answer and was about to leave when she heard a voice from behind her.
“This has gone on long enough, Sister.”
She swallowed hard. She had not heard him come in.
“It’s been almost a month.”
It was Father Oliver, the monk in charge of the monastery where she lived, and hearing him speak made her wonder how long he had been in the chapel and sitting behind her.
“You need not pray any longer for wisdom. You have prayed for that long enough. It is time for you to obey what is being given to you. Your path is clear to everyone here, except perhaps to you.”
She rose from the bench and sat back against the pew but did not turn around to face her superior. She dropped her hands into her lap, the rosary draped across her fingers, her face down. “But I don’t know,” she replied. “How can I be sure?”
“Your heart knows,” he answered.
There was a pause. She did not respond.
“How do you feel when you think about the work you have done with your father, Captain Divine? How was it to solve that murder?”
Eve closed her eyes and thought about the case she’d helped to figure out working alongside the Captain. She took in a deep and full breath, her heart opening, as she considered what it was like when she made the educated guess as to who had killed the Hollywood director. The satisfaction of it—the completeness of closing the case—it was true; her spirit soared in those days unlike it ever had before.
“I am right, yes?” he asked. “This work as a detective, it fulfills you.”
She did not answer at first. She considered what he said, understanding exactly what he meant, knowing in earnest it was true. She felt something so different when she had worked at the detective agency. She felt connected to the world in a way she hadn’t experienced before. She felt useful and engaged. Alive. The monk was right, and as much as she didn’t want to admit to her passions, she knew it.
“But how do I know to trust those feelings? How do I know that the feelings aren’t just my temptation, something I should surrender and let go of, not trust? How do I know this urge should be honored and not resisted? How can you be sure I’m not just being willful and disobedient?”
Father Oliver poured out a long breath. Eve felt him then, just at her back, close but not threatening, not hovering. She was glad to have him near her this way, behind her, not in front of her, not looking into her eyes. It was a bit like the sacrament of confession, with a thick veil, a wall, separating the confessor from the one offering redemption.
“We are told by the psalmist that God meets the desires of our hearts. Even Saint Paul wrote to the church in Galatia that ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’ ”
Eve was confused. She was not following his explanation, but she didn’t interrupt. In more than twenty years as a nun she had learned some skills about listening and about silence; and as she bit her lip, holding back another question, holding back her impatience, she realized this was one of the skills that had benefited her in solving the mystery of the dead Hollywood director. She had known how to listen to what was being said as well as to discern what was being shown. She had solved the mystery because she understood what it meant to listen carefully, to pay close attention to the details.
Oliver waited a bit and continued. “If you are a true disciple, Sister, and I believe you are, then Christ lives in you. If this is so, then the desire that is in your heart can be trusted. It is the truth for you to live by.”
Eve relaxed. It was the news she had wanted but had not expected to hear from her superior. She knew that what he was saying was certainly true, that working at the detective agency energized her in a way she hadn’t felt for a long time. She knew being in the role of detective fed her spirit, engaged her mind and heart, and fulfilled her. It was everything she had been searching for at the monastery for years, even years she had not realized she was looking for something.
“Who will watch the animals?” she asked, suddenly remembering the stray cats and dogs she had been housing and feeding at the monastery. She was the only resident who took care of them. She worried that to leave would mean the animals would more than likely be neglected. Not knowing who would step up and take over was one of the reasons she had been using for her decision to stay.
“I have spoken to Sister Mary Edith and Brother Stephen. They are both dedicated to caring for all the residents here, the four-legged creatures as well as those of us with two. We will continue the good work you began.”
Eve smiled. It warmed her heart to know that he had understood this would be important in her discernment process to leave the monastery. He knew what caring for the animals meant to her, and with his reply, it was clear that he had already managed this matter of concern.
She nodded and thought about the man sitting behind her and understood how she had come to love and respect Father Oliver over the years. He was not one who spoke frivolously or one who used his authority as a means of power over the others at the monastery. Even in times of disagreement, and there had certainly been a few of those, Eve had always found her superior to be kind and fair in his leadership. She trusted him.
“I just want it to be a leave of absence,” she said. “I am not ready to leave for good. I just need a couple of months to sort through things, help my dad again, and be back in Madrid and just have time to think about things.”
She felt his hand on her shoulder. It was warm and strong.
“It is just a leave of absence,” he agreed. And then he removed his hand. “But Sister Evangeline, you must use these six weeks as the opportunity that they are. You must still your mind and listen to your heart. If you do that, if you seek in truthfulness to know what it is you are to do with your life, you will know the truth.”
“And the truth will set me free,” she added. She reached her right hand across her opposite shoulder and held it there, waiting. She didn’t wait long before his hand clasped hers and squeezed. She dropped her head, said a prayer of thanks, and felt the release of his hand on hers. When she stood up to leave, she turned around to thank Father Oliver, to tell him what relief he had given her, to let him know what his counsel had meant to her, how she had been praying for what he had given to her, but the chapel was empty. There was no one else there. The one who’d provided her the answer had already gone.